Chapter Text
Eight years later, the moment they met would be widely regarded as the beginning of a legend, but nine years before that, or a year before today, Kagami Taiga and Aomine Daiki are experiencing the worst day of their lives.
It happens like this: Himuro Tatsuya challenges Kagami Taiga to a final one-on-one wherein the stakes are nothing less than the most important relationship of Kagami’s life, while, on the other side of the globe Aomine Daiki discovers that the light and love of his life is no longer something worth doing. Later that day when Kagami is coercing his parents to send him to Japan and Aomine is trying not to think of the face of the friend he'd pointedly ignored, the thought that “Everything is going to change” crosses their minds.
And, true to their suspicions, nothing was ever the same.
The less said about the one year between the worst day of their lives and the day they meet, the better. This is what they tell themselves now, and this is what they tell all nosy press and paparazzi eight years later.
Kagami doesn’t want to remember, and he doesn’t want people asking. He doesn't want to think about the year he couldn’t bring himself to play basketball with anyone but himself. He doesn't want to think about all the nights in empty basketball courts. He doesn't want to think about having to quit his new middle school's basketball team, unable to cope with the stifling presence his teammates. He doesn't want to remember wallowing in something that wasn’t quite self-hate but more than just a little bit like it.
He told himself he feels bad because the standards in Japan are just so damn bad, and he believed it. He didn't want to think about the truth. He still doesn't.
Kagami spent his year before Touou filled to the brim with negativity. Aomine spent it hollow.
He just didn't care. He didn't want to care. It was pointless to care. And if everyone around him was falling apart or ascending into a level of wrongness Tetsu couldn't stand to be a part of that definitely wasn't his problem. Isn't his problem. In the end all of it is pointless to think about anyway.
A few months before Touou, Kuroko Tetsuya disappears from the Teikou basketball team’s sight, and Aomine tells himself nothing's wrong.
A few months before Touou, Kagami sits alone at a Maji Burger at some ungodly hour and finds himself realizing that everything's wrong.
He hopes his high school has a basketball team.
Shortly into Touou's new semester, otherwise known as the beginning of a legend, or today, Aomine Daiki meets Kagami Taiga for the first time.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Aomine looks at the new arrival and likens him to an abandoned dog—wary, irritable, and a little nervous. Their homeroom teacher mentions that he’s a returnee from America, which gets Aomine’s attention for all of two seconds before the rest of the class starts throwing questions at the guy. No way is he going to fight the crowd just because the new kid's from the States. Too much energy wasted.
Aomine notes that you really get the returnee vibe in heaps from the new kid in the way he struggles to answer all the questions. He doesn’t seem to know how he should talk, it's not that he has the accent of someone unused to speaking Japanese, but he looks like he’s having a hard time choosing words. It’s kind of funny in a pathetic way cause he’s trying to talk politely but he keeps slipping into a really disrespectful mode of talking and it’s just—nobody talks like that (1). There’s disrespectful, and then there’s this. You don’t hear a guy talking like this anywhere but a manga. Who the hell taught this kid Japanese? Maybe it’s a thing with returnees. He wouldn’t know though, no point of comparison and all and—AGH
‘Everyone is so damn noisy, like what the hell’—he tilts his head back, closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose, hoping that he can somehow block the noise out of his mind.
“Ok that’s enough,” their teacher says it firmly enough that the chattering dies down “Kagami-kun, your seat will be the one next to Aomine-kun’s in the back.”
The murmurs die down completely as their teacher starts taking attendance. Aomine inwardly sighs in relief and slowly opens his eyes to find… the new guy staring at him.
….Correction, glaring at him, ‘The hell is this guy’s problem?’ he thinks irately, eyebrows furrowing and nose scrunching as he returns the scrutiny.
“…Nice to meet you,” Kagami says after a beat.
Aomine just blinks for a moment, stunned, before managing to answer with a “Hi.”
Kagami nods at him as he sits, then faces forward to listen to whatever their teacher is saying. Aomine lets his gaze linger on him for a moment before he turns his attention elsewhere.
Thirty minutes later (ten minutes into first period), Aomine falls asleep and Kagami is staring at him like he’s grown another head (though he tries his best to seem like he isn’t).
When Kagami first entered the classroom Aomine had immediately caught his eye. Sure the guy looked sleepy, bored out of his wits, and itching to get out of his seat, but he also had this weird commanding aura to him. Admittedly, Kagami isn’t the best at reading people most of the time, but he had a pretty good sense of who had the potential to succeed and who didn’t, because people like that smelled different. He didn’t even know his name, but Kagami did know that Aomine’s smell was overwhelming, and that was, well, that was interesting.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Kagami joins the Touou basketball club, although he hasn’t actually heard shit about it. Admittedly he doesn't care one way or other. He just wants to play basketball. He does overhear the other freshmen talk about how they’ve been recruiting really good players lately to strengthen the team and how they even got the “ace of the generation of miracles” (‘Whatever the hell that means’, Kagami thinks).
Well, at least it'd be a pretty good incentive if their players are as strong as they're made out to be.
The applicant freshmen who didn't have the privilege of getting scouted are lined up for the captain and team manager's introductions. Kagami's distracted nearly the entire time because the guy standing next to him keeps fidgeting and muttering ‘Sorry’ every time he so much as looks at him. It's annoying as hell but at least the guy doesn’t smell like a weakling. In fact it's the opposite. He has the smell of a guy who hates losing, and can actually back it up.
The other freshmen aren't really worth his time, but thankfully the team's regulars are. Their Captain looked competent despite the creepy smile on his face and a voice that’s made it sound like he was trying to be sincere but succeeded in sounding patronizing 75% of the time instead. But maybe that was the secret to his competence. He had a smell akin to that kid in Kagami's elementary school who used to blackmail people into giving him their snacks.
Their Captain (Imayoshi, if Kagami is remembering it right) is still in the middle of telling them what they're expected to do when one of Kagami's classmates walks into the gym. Despite smelling the talent on him earlier in their classroom he was still a bit surprised by his arrival. Their team manager (Momoi?) immediately stomps over to him and scolds him for being late. His classmate just looks away obviously irritated. He takes his place on the team captain's left and gets introduced as “Aomine Daiki from Teikou” as if it’s supposed to mean something. When all the other freshmen start fidgeting as Aomine sweeps a judging gaze at them, Kagami guesses that yeah, it probably should.
And so he does the only logical thing to do in this situation.
Looking straight at Aomine he says:"Play me one-on-one?", with an air of nonchalance which hid (he hoped it did) his bubbling curiosity.
His sudden declaration is met by silence. Everyone stares at him wide-eyed, like he’s crazy - except Imayoshi, who seems incredibly amused, and Aomine, who’s looking at him like he doesn’t know what to make of him at all.
His tone irritated and lazy when he says “Eh? Who are y—“ and then he stops, looking as if something just dawned on him. He stares at Kagami’s face, and his expression goes from bored to surprised to slightly amused.
“You’re the returnee,” he says, and the growing smirk on his face makes Kagami want to punch him. “Alright then, let’s play.”
Imayoshi and Momoi look at each other. Imayoshi says “Do whatever you want,” just as Momoi says “We should ask Coach first.”
She glares at him for that, and he gives her the most unapologetic apologetic look that anyone has ever seen in reply.
“Fine,” she says, sighing. “I guess if Aomine-kun wants to, Coach would have said yes anyway.”
And then, Kagami swears, he hears a tall blonde second year to the captain's right say “Stupid fucking bastard,” but Imayoshi elbows him so hard that he doubles over, so he doesn’t really know for sure.
He’s snapped out of his thoughts when a ball is thrown to his face. He catches it despite his surprise, and he’s about to mouth off the bastard who threw it at him but stops when he realizes it was Aomine.
“Stop standing around, you challenged me remember? Let’s get on with this.” Kagami just really, really wants to punch the bastard, but beating him at a one-on-one would be much more satisfying. So he keeps silent and walks towards where Aomine is.
“Just so you know—“ Aomine starts, when they’re face to face “—this is me testing you. Nobody’s expecting a real match.”
Kagami grits his teeth, “What the fuck is this bastard’s DEAL?”, he’s about to retort but the way Aomine’s face shifts from a teasing smirk to something colder quiets him.
“I’m not looking for something that doesn’t exist like a player who’s better than me. I just want to know how much you can do, to relieve my boredom.”
Aomine’s intensity is intimidating up close like this, but Kagami won’t let it bother him. He takes a slow, deep breath before he says “You really know how to piss a guy off don’t you? Shut up and play. I am going to CRUSH you.”
The smirk he receives in reply and Aomine's very first step forward gives him the feeling that this won’t really work out the way he wants it to.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Kagami loses spectacularly.
He would find it funny if he didn’t feel so humiliated. Despite his shame however, he can’t help but get fired up, because this guy, Aomine? He’s damn fucking amazing. He’s so unreal that Kagami is actually extremely upset about it. But at the same time, he did say he wanted a challenge, and well, this is it, and it is one heck of a challenge.
“You lose.” Aomine says, staring down at Kagami who’d fallen flat on his ass
Kagami grunts, hopes that the sound says “Yeah I KNOW” for him clearly enough, and starts getting up. Aomine says nothing further and walks out of the gym. Momoi seems to want to try to call after him but then sighs and mutters “Oh nevermind…”
The rest of the freshmen try to pretend the one-on-one didn’t just happen (after Kagami glares a few gigglers into silence), but the tension is painfully apparent when they’re being grouped for practice matches between first years to gauge their strength.
“In case you’ve already forgotten I’m Momoi Satsuki, your new team manager, and from now on I will be the one to watch your progress and brief you on our opponents whenever the coach isn’t around and sometimes even when he is. This I will do aside from the usual managerial obligations, of course, which by the way do NOT include being your water girl just so we're clear.” She’s amiable enough, but it almost sounds like a threat.
Which is why he jumps when she turns to look at him
“Kagami-kun,” she starts, and he has a really bad feeling about this, “Don’t worry about losing to him there’s absolutely no shame in that, your form was good.” and Kagami can hear the “I want to see if you can do better” that goes unsaid.
He is simultaneously offended and ridiculously flattered, but he’s not quite sure what would be the appropriate verbal response to that so he just nods.
His performance shuts everyone up this time too, but for very difference reasons.
-o-o-o-o-o-
If Kagami went to any other school, he’d probably be seen as a big damn genius. This is Aomine’s assessment of him after their one-on-one. He’s got the form of someone who’s been playing basketball a while, aggressive plays that would make most players panic, but makes all the mistakes of someone who doesn’t know their own strength. Basically, as far as Aomine’s concerned, he has no idea what he’s doing. It occurs to Aomine, that it might be entertaining to cultivate the hidden talent that he’s pretty sure is there and then see what happens, but at the same time, he’s pretty sure Kagami couldn’t beat him no matter how much he improved so it probably isn’t worth the effort.
He’ll admit Kagami’s different though.
Losing might have shut him up, but as embarrassed as he might have felt (and it was plain to see on his face that he was pretty damn embarrassed), Kagami didn’t seem discouraged in the least, and that was… well it was something, Aomine guesses. Not that it even really matters.
“Lazing on the roof again?”
“Satsuki, go bother someone else,” he groans “I’m trying to sleep.”
Momoi ignores his words and sits beside him. “The rest of the first years are pretty interesting, two of them especially. They’re both in your class, Sakurai Ryou’s really good at three pointers, and well you’ve met Kagami already,” she pauses. “I wonder why he’s two days late, according to his records he spent his last year of middle school here. You’d think he’d start the school year with the rest of us right?”
It figures that Satsuki’s researching and cataloging him already. He rolls to his side so his back’s facing her. “Isn’t it your job to know that?”
“It is,” is what she says, but “I was trying to get you to tell me what you think about him” is what he hears.
“He’s ok,” he says, because he knows she won’t leave him alone if he didn’t. “Needs some work, but he’s ok.”
He hears her huff (in a way that suspiciously sounds like “I thought so”).
“You’re lucky we were just assessing the rest of the freshmen today—“ she says”—or Wakamatsu-senpai would have blown a fuse again”
“Please,” Aomine scoffs “As if I care what he thinks, the bastard.”
“You should still come to practice.”
“Should—but won’t.”
“Even if I told you Kagamin is more than he seems?”
He actually turns to look at her at that, an eyebrow raised.
“Kagamin?” he says incredulously.
She has this annoyingly smug look on her face, like she knows something he doesn’t.
“You really should come to practice,” she says, patting his shoulder as she moves to get up. “You might enjoy yourself.”
“Ugh,” he turns back to his side. “Not wasting my time with that.”
“See you there!” is all Satsuki says in reply and then she’s closing the door shut.
-o-o-o-o-o-
The next day Aomine skips morning practice, and isn’t at afternoon practice either.
He’s also missed half their classes after he asked to go to the nurse’s office in the middle of fourth period. Kagami hasn’t known him for that long but he’s pretty sure he’s skipping (cause no way in hell would he be sick). Their team manager—err, Momoi-san— asks him and Sakurai if they knows where he is. Sakurai tells her “He’s in the infirmary, I’m sorry!” while Kagami eyes him trying to figure out why the kid finds it so necessary to apologize about everything.
“Kagami-kun, would you please go get him? I need to meet with Coach.”
Kagami’s initial reaction is irritation and he makes a face to show it. He’s about to wonder “Why me?” aloud but remembers that he’s probably the only freshman who isn’t too intimidated to even just talk to Aomine so he relents (and ok, Momoi just gave him a look, and she’s kind of scary so he doesn’t want to push her buttons).
He finds Aomine sleeping on one of the infirmary beds.
“Oi wake up, they’re asking for you at practice.”
Aomine doesn’t even twitch, so Kagami tries shaking him.
“Team manag—uh, Momoi-san seems really annoyed, you should really just get your ass down there to the gym.”
Still nothing—this is starting to piss Kagami off.
He shouts “WAKE UP YOU BASTARD!” and kicks the bed so hard Aomine actually falls off.
“WHAT THE FU—“ and he’s awake. Good.
Aomine sits up rubbing the back of his head and sees Kagami standing there glaring at him.
“Are you fucking CRAZY?” he screams “If I got injured, you would have been as good as kicked out of the team you shit!”
Kagami scoffs “Please—“ he crosses his arms “—idiots don’t get injured.”
Aomine looks at him like he’s stupid, “That’s not even—what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Like I said, they’re asking for you at practice.”
Aomine makes a disgusted face “No,” he says getting up and crawling back into bed. “I don’t have time for that, I have plans.”
“What!? All you’re going to do is nap!”
“Exactly.”
Kagami groans, long and exasperated, then starts pulling at Aomine’s uniform. “I’m taking you with me whether you like it or not you bastard.”
Aomine grabs his wrist and glares. Kagami stops moving altogether. Aomine's grip is tight, painfully so. Everything from the hard set of Aomine's jaw to the sharp look in his eyes screams “Go away” and Kagami doesn’t want to admit it but it's freaking him out.
“Whatever,” he growls, shaking off Aomine’s grip, turning away in hopes of hiding his discomfort “Don’t blame me if you get scolded.”
Aomine snorts and lays back down on the bed. Kagami lingers for a moment, staring at his own shoes awkwardly, before he stalks away in a huff.
When he gets back to the gym all Momoi-san says about the lack of Aomine is “Oh good, he didn’t punch you,” and nothing else. He feels as if he’s being manipulated into something, but he has no clue what.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Wakamatsu (a center and regular of the team, otherwise known as the tall blond second year who did curse Aomine during Kagami’s first day) is loud pretty much all the time and is as easily pissed off as he is excitable. This Kagami learns after just a week on the Touou basketball team. Aomine hasn’t come to morning practice for all of that week, and has only dropped by once for afternoon practice, and it's not that Kagami particularly cares what the bastard does, but Wakamatsu-sempai has so graciously been loudly reminding them of this fact on a daily basis and it was quite frankly getting extremely annoying. As was his incessant need to loudly comment on a lot of things.
“How is it possible to eat that much!?” Wakamatsu asks Kagami after morning practice, staring incredulously at the pile of sandwiches he bought from the convenience store on the way to school.
They’re all eating their breakfast on the gym's stage. And it is way too early for Kagami’s mind to process Japanese as quickly as he ought.
Since “Uhmm” is all he can say with his mouth full anyway, that’s what he does. Wakamatsu continues to look at him like he’s a new wonder of the world. He can see Sakurai gawk at him with great interest from the corner of his eye and he wonders if it really is so surprising that he can eat this much.
“I eat a normal amount” Kagami says after he swallows.
“For a whale maybe—“ Wakamatsu’s nose is scrunching up in mild disgust, but his face continues to show curiosity “—where does it even go?”
Kagami just grunts, what is even the point of these questions? Attempting to veer things away from him and his food he asks “Is Aomine really ok not coming to practice?”
The incredibly loud angry growl (it’s more of a roar really, geez, Kagami feels like his eardrums are going to burst) that Wakamatsu releases makes Kagami immediately regret asking that particular question.
“That bastard really gets on my nerves!”
‘Yeah well, that’s true for a lot of people’ Kagami thinks.
“He always acts like he’s better than everyone!”
Imayoshi grabs Wakamatsu's shoulder before he can continue on into a tirade.
“Calm down Wakamatsu” he says, admonishing “It doesn't matter if he's arrogant if he gets results. And anyway, you have to admit he has the right to be high and mighty, Aomine’s… different.”
Kagami thinks that’s a gross understatement but leaves it alone because their captain was probably trying to be vague on purpose. Just saying outright that Aomine is better than all of them in basketball wasn’t going to help anyone. Frankly hearing it out loud from another person would have pissed Kagami off (and he guesses would have pissed off a number of their other players too).
Especially since Aomine seems to have zero fucks to give.
Aomine seems to think there’s nobody out there who could ever beat him, probably why he thinks he can afford not to give a damn. But Kagami thinks, what a small word Aomine must live in, if he can’t find a single person capable of beating him. Even the best NBA players lose sometimes, because there’ll always be someone stronger, and because they’re human, so they do in fact, make mistakes. Kagami refuses to believe Aomine’s basketball is really that perfect.
After Imayoshi’s interruption the gym quiets down to idle chatter as they all finish their breakfast before hitting the showers to get ready for class.
Later at afternoon practice, there is still no sign of Aomine.